


Five Times Times Wendy Carr Toiled (But One Time She Didn't Have To)

by monanotlisa



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: 5 Things, Crime Fighting, Gen, Origin Story, Psychology, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17031834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/pseuds/monanotlisa
Summary: Did you, too, wonder who Wendy Carr had been before her first scene inMindhunter?





	Five Times Times Wendy Carr Toiled (But One Time She Didn't Have To)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mammothluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/gifts).



 

 

1.

_Education is what survives when what has been learned is forgotten._ \- B.F. Skinner 

“Hey, Wendy,” she hears behind her. Wendy speeds up her steps slightly. It doesn’t work; Steven Hunt catches up with her, half-blocking the pebbled path in the shadow of the lecture hall. “What classes are you taking?” He peers at the stack of books she’s holding, tilting his head sideways and making his hair glint in the sunshine. The gesture makes him look like a Golden Retriever puppy.

Wendy has no interest in him, but she also has no interest in alienating a Hunt. She tilts her stack of textbooks toward him. 

He squints. “Forensic Psychology, Introduction to Sociology.” A laugh, but it's easy. “Don't flip your wig, but why?”

She feels familiar heat flare in her chest, but she breathes. In, out. “Why not?”

He smiles. It’s a carefree expression. “See, Wendy, you don’t always listen as perfectly as they say. Education-focused courses are much more appropriate.” He doesn’t say for whom.

Wendy reaches inside of herself and lets the fire forge her words. “It’s appropriate for those who want to study teaching. I do not.”

At that, Mark’s sunny face scrunches up, suddenly more pug than retriever. “What's wrong with being a teacher?”

“Teaching is not the same as learning,” Wendy tells him, and knows at that moment it is true for her.

 

 

2.

 _You must learn to use your life experience in your intellectual work: continually examine and interpret it._ \- C. W. Mills

Maria’s smile is triumphant. Wendy can’t look away.

The cafe is crowded, steamy in the winter afternoon. It seems to Wendy that half her cohort has piled onto chairs and the worn-out sofa with its gold varnish half rubbed-off by time and the student body. Wendy is perched on one of the moustache chairs across the low coffee table, not lucky enough to be squeezed onto the sofa next to Maria. That would be Jay-Jay, who has his arm slung over the back, behind Maria, less than inconspicuously. He too is staring at Maria with her cheeks still red from the cold, or maybe from the cocoa in front of her. Or maybe from the enthusiasm ringing through her words.

“All there is,” she says, “is a rational approach unburdened by obsolete paradigms. Or overly sentimental notions, for that matter. ‘The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society – to find your real job, and do it.’”

“Charlotte Gilman,” Wendy hears herself say, “had some great points. But how do you reconcile that she thought women are still different physically? That their roles are much wider than society’s structures dictate, but still constrained?”

“Good question.” Maria’s eyes flicker to Wendy’s, bright enough, but they don’t linger. Wendy swallows down the pang she feels. “I think it matters yet doesn’t -- a woman should struggle against what contains her artificially, but not against what she’s capable of naturally.”

“Choice, Maria.” Jay nods rapidly a few times. “A toast to the power of natural properties. Why wouldn’t you -- and every woman, of course -- get to have have a job _and_ a husband _and_ a child?”

Maria picks up her cocoa mug. “You're reductivist on purpose here, but I’ll take it.” She clicks her glass hard enough against Jay’s that it spills a few drops of cocoa. 

Wendy takes a long sip from her own drink, regretting the hot lemon. It needs more honey. A lot more honey. 

 

 

3.

 _Psychology often presents individuals as if they are frozen in time and space, describing their score on an intelligence or personality test, how they remember or what their inner conflicts are._ \- David Cantor

The bailiff is maybe fifty and sweating at the hairline. Wendy wonders whether it’s the heat of the day or nervousness. It can’t be every day he has to lead a serial rapist like Daniel Strickland into the courtroom and out again. 

Strickland looks different under the bright lights: all sharp edges and deep creases. She remembers his face as smudged in the cramped interview cell, his voice low and almost scared. Incarcerated and in the midst of hardened criminals, he seemed normal. 

Not that there is such a thing. And appearances can be deceiving. Case in point.

“The state calls Wendy Carr to the stand.”

Wendy walks up, controlling her breathing. If she is holding her file folder a little tightly for her first expert witness appearance, well. No one can possibly see this detail. She gets sworn in; this part is easy, routine.

The prosecutor seems to take forever squaring his shoulders and focusing on her. He says,

“Miss Carr --”

“Doctor Carr.” She doesn’t smile at him. His name is Timothy Miller, and he is, in Wendy's estimation, a reasonable fellow. To his credit, he blinks and recovers immediately. “Of course, Dr. Carr. Thank you for joining us today.” He goes into a spiel about her background and her credentials. They are excellent and impeccable, respectively. Of course they are.

“Who did you interview when you went to,” a rustle of papers, “the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction on June 19, 1972?” 

She leans toward the microphone and speaks softly at first, then, when it works without any crackle or hiss, with more volume: “The defendant, Daniel Webster Strickland.”

“Defendant had early on claimed he was not competent to stand trial.” The prosecutor glances over to Strickland with what Wendy thinks is just the right amount of time. “Describe what you found during your interview.”

Wendy thinks about this for a split second. Her pure observations are not likely to be helpful. But. “I found the defendant to be distressed. But it would be a mistake to look at one singular moment in prison, versus the long period preceding the...incidents. The more important description of his mental state comes from what is already in evidence.” She focuses on the judge. “Your honor, using that evidence, may I explain why I believe the defendant was perfectly competent at each relevant time?”

When the judge affirms her inquiry, Wendy speaks. With every word her voice sounds more like she wants her voice to sound.

She doesn’t have to look back at the bench to know this trial will end with Strickland behind bars.

 

 

4.

 _Psychiatry, which once was regarded as in the vanguard of the movement to liberate people from their troubles, is now viewed by many, and with some justification, as being an agent of social control. So it makes absolute sense to me not to list as a mental disorder those individuals not in conflict with their sexual orientation._ \- Dr. Robert L. Spitzer

The Marine Corps Base Quantico turns out to be far away from Boston in more than one way. Wendy originally considered it a place of learning akin to her own, albeit one more focused on apprehending criminality than understanding it.

She was not prepared for a machinery that churned more slowly than the one at Boston College. Academia has a reputation, and Wendy is well aware of it: procedures and regulations; ponderous regents and lagging infrastructure. 

But academia doesn’t lag in all areas of progress. Annaliese may not speak publicly about the intersection of gender, sexuality, and orientation; Wendy is probably near the most reserved end of the spectrum when it comes mentioning who she is -- even to her acquaintances. At the same time, they are hardly pretending to be heterosexual women. No one denied Annaliese tenure when the time came; no dean has ever suggested to Wendy she bring a gentleman to the department dinners.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation asks her questions about herself that Wendy expected, but the junior agent screening her also asks questions she had not expected in an America where the affirmative-action candidate from Georgia can win the presidential election. Does she have a husband? Her 'no' earns Wendy a raised eyebrow and a pencil hovering in the air. Does she have alternate proclivities? 

They're not, as far as Wendy has concluded, particularly alternate, seeing as she only ever had these particular ones. "I don't see how this question is relevant," she tells the junior agent.

His cheeks go ruddy, and he seems torn between staring at her and the paper in front of him. "This is standard; a crucial part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Rules Of Access Procedure."

"I understand, Agent Hansen," she says, gentling her voice, "that this is procedure. But the Bureau has asked me to be here as an expert consultant." This is, strictly speaking, true. "Would you like me to present the Assistant Director's letter dated April 7th?"

The young agent at whose name tag Wendy glanced earlier follows her fingers flipping open her briefcase with a practiced motion. "Um, no; that's quite alright, Dr. Carr."

"Thank you.” She drums her fingers on the open briefcase before resting them neatly on the Boston University letterhead. Wendy smiles. "Shall we move on?"

Agent Hansen nods thankfully, scrawls a hasty 'N/A' into the current line, and jumps to the next question.

 

 

5\. 

_With respect to its products, psychology is a Babel of different theory languages. Its innumerable research works involve inconsistent and unrelated concepts, principles, and findings. Different problem areas of study use different methodologies and eschew those used by others. The studies subtract from each other; the whole is thus less than the sum of its parts._ \- Arthur W. Staats

Wendy doesn’t hear from Bill Tench directly, not at first.

Instead, it’s one of her colleagues, bumping into her almost literally. “Have you heard about this whiz kid who wants to trace the pathological mind, Wendy?”

She hasn’t, although the description is such that he immediately thought of her. Wendy gives him a wry smile. “Are you trying to foist one of your students onto me, Robert, because their aspirations might be a fit for mine?”

He laughs, and yes, it’s a silly comment on her part. “Hardly! We can’t all walk through the valley of the shadow of death and come out on the other side.”

Wendy doesn’t much appreciate religious references, and she lets slide that she may have come out, but certainly isn't unscathed. Still, her interest is piqued. “Who is this man?” Were it a woman, she would never be described with the genius so easily attributed to someone assigned male at birth.

“Young FBI agent. I only remember his name because of the President.”

Wendy listens with attention and, she realizes at some point, genuine interest. When the name “Tench” comes up, so does her head. Bill. If Bill is involved, she has an easy angle -- and someone out there who doesn’t have a head in the clouds but common sense.

She receives the first crate of copied notes by one Holden Ford on a Friday evening. 

On Monday morning, she picks up the receiver and dials the number of her old friend.

 


End file.
